IN CONVERSATION NOVEMBER 2019
COMPUTERARTS.CREATIVEBLOQ.COMand remained stubbornly ignorant
towards art on the computer.
There was also an Adobe
Illustrator and Photoshop design
class where I first discovered graphic
design. I’m trying not to sound too
dramatic about it, but it changed my
life. It changed how I viewed and
created art.How did you develop your current
painting style?
After college I focused on developing
my figure-painting skills. My
influences at the time, mostly being
graphic design and abstract art, led
me to introduce geometric/colourful
shapes to my paintings.
The graphic forms began to
take on a personality of their own,
sometimes consuming the figure.
The figure in the painting became
an anchor point in a composition
that was full of colourful shapes
and noise. This was all an aesthetic
exploration using different mediums
and techniques to get geometric
graphic shapes to work cohesively
with organic figure painting.How did you go about making a
name for yourself?
The advent of social media was
crucial. I started to dive into my
professional career right around the
time Instagram was getting noticed.
From Instagram I received enough
attention to get my first solo show.
It was in a tiny clothing boutique
off Bowery in New York City. A few
important people happened to see
the show walking by randomly;
one thing led to another and my
work appeared on the cover of Hi-
Fructose, a popular art magazine.
People seemed to be drawn to the
geometric shapes mixed with pretty
figures. So I pushed this even more.
Something I noticed early on was
that collectors didn’t want to see
versatility or variations from a young
artist, they wanted to see a ‘brand’, so
that’s what I became. I worked withE
rik Jones is a fine artist
whose works owe a lot
to the world of graphic
design. His highly
recognisable output
combines strikingly
accurate figure painting
and vibrant, non-
representational graphic
forms. He’s equally
experimental with media – a typical
artwork might require everything
from oil paints to a Wacom tablet
and an airbrush.
Jones is now based in Brooklyn,
and creates fine art for galleries all
over the world, including a recent
New York exhibition that saw
him push his style into previously
unexplored territory. We caught
up with him to learn how he found
his aesthetic, the realities of being
a professional artist nowadays, and
how a Photoshop class changed his
life forever.Tell us a bit about your artistic
background. What did you study
at Ringling College?
My professors were mostly
illustrators who were very tech-savvy.
Along with traditional painting and
drawing classes I was forced to learn
digital art. (When I started my first
day of college I didn’t know how to
turn on a computer.) I wasn’t a fana similar theme over and over and
over again for a few years until I had
taken that spot in the marketplace
of ideas. I was now the guy that did
pretty girls with shapes – and I had a
blast doing it!
The repetition in concept gave me
the opportunity to explore mediums
and materials. This might sound
incredibly banal, but it worked! And
once you have your foot in the door
you can expand and explore your
creative voice, which is where I feel
like I’m at now.You often use different media
within the same artwork. Why?
Every painting I make has a
multitude of mediums and
techniques. My most heavily used
mediums are coloured pencil,
water-soluble wax pastel, heavy body
acrylic, oil and airbrush. I guess the
only paintings that use one medium
are murals. That’s all done with
exterior house paint acrylic latex,
which I do enjoy using.
The different mediums produce
different effects. Pencil and oil are
used to smooth everything out,
acrylic for texture and airbrush
for gradients.Do you have a favourite medium?
Hmm, that’s tough. They all work
with each other so well that I like
them all the same. But I suppose if
I had to pick, I would say water-
soluble wax pastel. It’s similar to
oil, but easier to use, and it doesn’t
have that ‘oil’ look (when people over
render things in oil). The pastels
retain a tangible harshness through
the mark-making process that I find
very desirable.Part of your designs are hyper-
realistic. People can have strong
feelings about hyper-realism in
art: some feel it shows incredible
artistic skill, others think it negates
the point of being an artist. What’s
your take?Lounge was
created using a
range of media, as
is typical of Erik
Jones’ process.